


Between the devil and the deep blue sea

by Tanaqui



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/pseuds/Tanaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst part of being the medical examiner in Haven is having to figure out what to write in official reports. Usually. (Spoilers for all three seasons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the devil and the deep blue sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samjohnsson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samjohnsson/gifts).



> Thanks, as always, to my usual beta.

Eleanor's sensible brogues slipped on a slimy tangle of seaweed as she and Garland carefully made their way over the rocks at the base of the cliff. She grabbed his arm to steady herself. "I hate kelp," she muttered.

"It's dulse." Garland made sure she'd found her feet again, before fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He shook one out. "Food of the gods."

"The gods can keep it." Eleanor eyed Garland as he lit the cigarette. "Those things'll kill you."

"So will a lot of things in Haven." He jerked his head down the beach to where a figure sprawled awkwardly, half on the rocks, half on the sand below.

"Just make sure you're finished with it before we reach the body." Eleanor stepped ahead of him. "Don't want you contaminating my crime scene."

" _Your_ crime scene?" Garland sounded amused. Ignoring him, she picked her way forward again. He didn't say anything more for a long moment before he added in a considering tone, "Maybe I should try some of that nicotine gum."

"Maybe you should." Eleanor paused briefly and grimaced back over her shoulder at him. "Would be damned inconvenient to lose you, Garland. I'd hate to have to train up a whole new Chief of Police." Besides—looking forward again, she eyed the corpse—there'd been enough deaths among the Troubled already this year. And she was tired of thinking up convincing explanations for her reports.

oOo

Later, leaning over the second body in the morgue, she wished she had any kind of explanation, for the official report or otherwise. They'd found this one—Annice Fields; she ran a beauty parlor over on Lincoln Street—a little further along the coast. It'd been reported by Annice's sister, who'd found her sprawled in the kitchen with smashed breakfast dishes scattered around her. Clearly there'd been some kind of struggle before she died. Now Garland was out trying to find a connection between the two victims, while Eleanor worked on figuring out what had killed them.

Right now, she was stumped. There was some bruising around Annice's neck, but her eyes weren't bloodshot and her larynx hadn't been crushed, ruling out suffocation or strangulation. There was no head trauma, no sign of a heart attack.... 

There was—Eleanor bent a little closer, her eyes narrowing as she squinted down at the dissected flesh pinned out before her. There was something odd about the thyroid: it was covered with folds and wrinkles, almost like it had been enlarged at one point, which wouldn't have been odd in itself, and then had collapsed back, the contents sucked out. It was, if anything, now on the small size.

Stripping off her gloves and dropping them in the trash, Eleanor headed over to the cabinet where the recent autopsy files were kept. Pulling out the file for the first victim—Daniel Pressman; he worked at the Haven Hardware store—she spread the contents out on the counter, flipping through the photographs she'd taken the day before. Daniel had received a nasty crack on the head, but her examination showed that had occurred post-mortem, probably from falling against the rocks. There'd been some faint bruising around his neck as well, which was what had made them connect the two deaths. Well, that and any series of deaths in Haven tended to point to a Trouble. 

It was really a wonder, Eleanor thought as she went on turning over the photographs, that there was anyone at all left in the town or that some government statistician over in Augusta hadn't noticed and raised a stink about the remarkably high death rate. 'Course, new folks were always arriving: Eleanor had a feeling most of them were Troubled and there was maybe some kind of modern-day Underground Railroad operating. For a moment, she considered whether Julia had the right idea after all, running off to Ethiopia: maybe the death rate actually _was_ lower in a refugee camp. Or at least the deaths weren't half so freaky.

With a shake of her head, Eleanor dismissed the notion. Julia would come home when she was ready; look at how Garland was struggling with his boy, too. Instead, she gave a grunt of satisfaction as she lighted on the photograph she'd been looking for. Daniel's thyroid showed the same aberration, subtle enough she'd missed it first time around.

She still didn't know what it meant, but at least it gave her a new angle of attack. Shuffling the file together and stuffing it back in the cabinet, she prepared herself for a long afternoon in the path lab.

oOo

"You okay?" Garland reached out and touched her arm briefly as they stood in the middle of the seaweed packing plant, watching Nathan lead the owner away in handcuffs.

"I'm fine." Eleanor rubbed at her neck, the memory of Marvin Cox's hands around it still painfully fresh. She'd known him since he was a baby. Known his parents. "He didn't have a chance to do anything before you arrived."

"Yeah, well, next time, wait for me to get here." Garland gave her a sideways half-smile. "Would be damned inconvenient to lose you, too." He looked back at where Nathan, a hand on Marvin's head, was pushing him into the back of a cruiser. "Will he be okay?"

Eleanor nodded. "I'll write him a prescription for iodine supplements. That should at least stabilize him while we find a long-term solution."

They'd figured it out, of course. They always did. It was just a question of how many people got hurt and how many bodies piled up before they managed to identify the Trouble—and who it belonged to.

It had taken her into next morning—she'd had to leave several of the tests running overnight—but the lab results had confirmed that there was something very strange going on with both victims. Their thyroid hormones were all over the map, like both of them had seen a massive boost of thyroid activity and then been sucked dry. Which would likely explain the bruising around their necks—a hand on the throat over the affected area—even if it made no sense medically. Of course, this was Haven: Eleanor had seen plenty of things that conventional medicine couldn't account for in the years since her internship in the ME's office.

She'd called Garland with the news. He told her that one of the neighbors had reported seeing Marvin Cox's truck at Annice's house, and reminded her that Dan Pressman had been found on the rocks below Cox's Seaweed. 

"That's the connection." Eleanor tapped a finger on the files in front of her. "Thyroid issues are usually linked to iodine and seaweed's iodine-rich. I'm guessing the Coxes have a Trouble and it's related to how they metabolize iodine."

"Not sure I understood a word of that, but if it's good enough for you...." Garland paused for a moment, clearly thinking. "Meet me at the Cox place as soon as you can," he said, before he hung up.

Marvin's truck was the only vehicle in sight when she pulled up outside the processing plant a few minutes later. Everything seemed to be locked up, even the house, and she remembered it was Sunday. Getting out of the truck, she called Marvin's name and—.

She wasn't quite sure what had happened next—it had all been so fast—or where Marvin had come from, but she found herself backed against the car, Marvin's hands around her neck. His face was close to hers, his eyes wild. 

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, even as she croaked out his name, she heard a car squeal to a halt a few feet away and Garland's voice yelling, "Let her go, Marvin." Marvin swung his head round and Eleanor took the chance to give him a shove. He staggered away from her. Looking up, trying to catch her breath, she saw Garland had his gun pointed at him.

"What happened, Marvin?" Garland waved the gun slightly, encouraging Marvin to speak. Out of the corner of her eye, Eleanor saw Nathan circling, handcuffs ready.

"I — I didn't mean it." Marvin's voice was hoarse, and Eleanor saw he was shivering. He wrapped his arms around himself. "I found Dan down on the rocks. We got into an argument about him trespassing on my land, harvesting my seaweed. He said he had the right, that he was below high tide. I got angry, told him to go take himself somewhere else. He pushed me and then... I don't know what happened. He was on the ground and my hands were hurting, like they'd been stung. I didn't remember how we got like that, but I knew he was dead and... I panicked and ran."

"What about Annice?" Nathan was behind Marvin now, twisting his arms behind his back and cuffing him.

"I stayed up all night, trying to figure out what to do." Marvin shrugged. "I knew I should turn myself in, explain it was an accident. I set off, but I started feeling really sick, so I stopped at Annice's place. She was eating breakfast. And then... the same thing happened. I don't remember anything, but when I came round, Annice was dead and... I didn't feel sick any more. But now I was really scared."

"So you went home?" Garland had put his gun away.

Marvin nodded. "Sent the workers home. Locked myself in the house. I knew you'd come for me, but I didn't want to go near anyone else in case... in case it happened again. And then I started feeling sick again, and Dr Carr came and...." He turned back towards her. "I'm sorry."

Eleanor accepted the apology with a dip of the head. She knew how Troubles got people. Marvin had killed twice but he hadn't meant it or planned it. And she was okay, even if it had been a near thing. Nearest she'd come in all her years in Haven to the Troubles getting _her_.

As Nathan finished putting Marvin in the car, Garland said, "I'll drive you home." He took her by the elbow and steered her round to the passenger seat of her car. "Nathan can take care of things here."

Eleanor nodded. She was still feeling a little shaky. Maybe, she thought, as Garland settled into the driver's seat beside her, Julia had the right idea after all. Maybe a refugee camp was a better option. But, no. She glanced across at Garland as he started the engine. Haven needed them: her and Garland and Nathan. She was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Even if she still couldn't abide seaweed.


End file.
